UN climate talks result acceptable but not satisfying

The results of the United Nations' climate talks, which aims to pave the way for a new global climate pact due to be agreed in 2015, were not satisfying but acceptable, the head of the Chinese delegation to the talks said late Saturday.

"There are many issues that we are not satisfied with but we can still accept," Xie Zhenhua, also deputy chief of China's National Development and Reform Commission, told Xinhua in an interview.

Xie made the remarks as the two-week UN climate negotiations came to an end after approaching the 20th hour of extra time.

Envoys from more than 190 countries and regions reached consensus that all countries should prepare "intended nationally determined contributions" to help cut carbon emissions.

Developed countries were urged to mobilize finance assistance from government channels "at increasing levels" for the 2013-2019 period, from the 10 billion U.S. dollars a year paid out from 2010 to 2012.

Negotiators also agreed to create a mechanism to help vulnerable nations to deal with the losses and damage caused by global warming.

Xie said the Warsaw negotiation had laid "a very good foundation" for the Lima talks scheduled next year and the Paris climate change conference in 2015.

To make the meeting a success and the multi-lateral mechanism effective, China has "shown the biggest flexibility and made concessions on some issues," he said.

"On the surface, the three issues are all solved, but in substance, they are not," said Xie.

During this conference, one of the key demands of developing countries was to let developed countries make funding pledges with specific figures for the Green Climate Fund during the 2013-2019 period.

"They just made a decision to agree to continue to pay for the fund during the period, but had made no commitments on when, how and how much this would be paid," Xie said.

"In the end, what they did is just painting a pie. On this point, developing countries are really disappointed," he added.

The developed countries agreed during the talks to acknowledge that there is such a thing as compensation and agreed to hold negotiations about this, he said.

However, there are no commitments on when and how to set up such a compensation mechanism, Xie said.

On clarifying responsibilities for cutting carbon emissions, all parties agreed to make "contributions", rather than the previous wording "commitments," to this cause.

"Contributions" is a neutral word, which can be interpreted as either "commitments" made by developed countries or "actions" taken by developing countries, Xie said.

Developed and developing countries are expected to negotiate over how to interpret the term of "contributions" next year, according to Xie.

The Chinese delegation chief expected historical responsibility for greenhouse emission to be the most contentious issue for next year's global climate negotiations.

While some developed countries claimed that China's greenhouse gas emission in 2015 would be equal to the total of the United States and the EU, Xie said such a comparison is unfair.

"Our emissions are different from yours, for ours are produced in the process of industrialization while you are already in the post-industrialization era," he said.

While developed countries only started to reduce their carbon emission when their per capita carbon emission reaches 22 metric tons, China began to do so when this figure is about six metric tons, he said.